Numerical modeling and experimental analysis of the desorption process in a metal hydride hydrogen storage system

Abstract

The highlyincreasingenergydemandandreductionofavailablefossilenergysourceshave made it important to developa new technique for energy storage,hydrogen being a good alternative for the future. That is there as on why with in this project, The storage of hydrogen as an adsorbed element in metal hydride bottles has been studied, Morespecificallyhydrogen desorption anddischarge. Tothisend,atwodimensionalaxisymmetricmodelisdevelopedtostudythehydrogen desorption reactionandresultantmass and heattransportphenomenainsideametalhydride canister. Moreover,theworkhasalsobeenfocusedonexperimentaltestsperformedonan in-house fabricatedsetupusingdifferent heating scenarios. It isimportanttomentionthatthestudiedsystemhasalotofunknowns,asthemetalinside the bottle, aswellastheinternalcanisterstructure andmorphologyarenotknown.Thatisthe reason whyanextensive studyon the effects ofthemetalpropertiesondesorptionperformance is carriedoutthroughnon-destructivetesting(NDT). Thenumericalmodelresultsareexplained in detailandcomparedwithexperimentaldataaswell,obtainingagoodagreement. Finally,theresultsobtainedcannotonlybeusedtoselectmetalhydridematerialsbutalso to evaluatethedegradation ofthe canisters intermsoftotalhydrogenstoragecapacity.